1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to disk drives, and in particular to a disk drive including a spindle motor and a pivot bearing cartridge attached to different layers of a laminated cover.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The typical hard disk drive includes a head disk assembly (HDA) and a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) attached to a disk drive base of the HDA. The head disk assembly includes the disk drive base, a cover, at least one magnetic disk, a spindle motor for rotating the disk, and a head stack assembly (HSA) that includes a transducer head supported by a slider for reading and writing data from and to the disk.
The spindle motor includes a spindle motor hub that is rotatably attached to the disk drive base. The spindle motor hub has an outer hub flange that supports a lowermost one of the disks. Additional disks may be stacked and separated with annular disk spacers that are disposed about the spindle motor hub. The spindle motor typically includes a spindle motor base that is attached to the disk drive base. A shaft is coupled to the spindle motor base and the spindle motor hub surrounds the shaft. The spindle motor hub may be rotatably coupled to the shaft and therefore the spindle motor base typically via a pair of bearing sets. A stator is positioned about the shaft and is attached to the spindle motor base. A magnet element is attached to the hub flange. The stator with the various poles of the magnet element. Such interaction results in forces applied to the spindle motor hub that tend to rotate the spindle motor hub and the attached disks.
The head stack assembly includes an actuator assembly including the sliders and a flex circuit cable assembly attached to the actuator assembly. A conventional “rotary” actuator assembly (also referred to as “rotary actuator” or simply “actuator”) typically comprises an actuator body, a pivot bearing cartridge, a coil portion that extends from one side of the actuator body to interact with one or more permanent magnets to form a voice coil motor, and one or more actuator arms which extend from an opposite side of the actuator body to a distal end of the actuator assembly. The actuator body includes a bore and the pivot bearing cartridge engaged within the bore for allowing the actuator body to rotate between limited positions. At least one head gimbal assembly (HGA) is distally attached to each of the actuator arms. Each head gimbal assembly biases a head towards the disk.
The printed circuit board assembly includes a servo control system in the form of a disk controller for generating servo control signals. The head stack assembly is controllably positioned in response to the generated servo control signals from the disk controller to the voice coil motor. In so doing, the attached sliders are moved relative to tracks disposed upon the disk for reading and writing operations with respect to the tracks contained on the disks.
A plurality of fasteners, such as metal screws, are disposed about a periphery of the disk drive cover and engage the periphery of the disk drive base for attachment of the disk drive cover with the disk drive base. In addition, as support for the actuator, a fastener is used to support the spindle motor and is engaged to the spindle motor also through the disk drive cover.
A topic of concern is mitigating the effects of various vibrations within the disk drive due to the many dynamic components. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved disk drive configuration in comparison to the prior art.